The History of English Poetry: From the Close of the Eleventh to the ...

published, and are now perhaps entirely lost. He translated the Ecclesiastes of Solomon into English verse. This piece is cited in the Preface to the Translation of the Psalms, printed at London in 1567. He also translated a few of the Psalms into metre. These versions of Scripture shew that he was a friend to the reformation. Among his works are also recited, a Poem on his friend the young duke of Richmond, an Exhortation to the citizens of London, a Translation of Boccace's Epistle to Pinus, and a sett of Latin epistles. Aubrey has preserved a poetical Epitaph, written by Surrey on fir Thomas Clere, his faithful retainer and constant attendant, which was once in Lambeth-church’; and which, for its affection and elegance, deserves to be printed among the earl's poems. I will quote a few lines.

John Clerc, who travelled into Italy with Pase, an eminent linguist of those times, and secretary to Thomas duke of Norfolk father of lord Surrey, in a dedication to the latter, prefixed to his TRET1se of Nobilitie printed at London in 1543 “, has mentioned, with the highest commendations, many translations done by Surrey, from the Latin, Italian, French, and

7 See Aubrey's Surrey, v.247. * He died in 1545. See Stowe's Chron.

* Chose. * Surrender. p. 586. 588. edit. 1615.

* Towns taken by lord Surrey in the * Lond. 1zmo. A translation from the . Bologne expedition. French.

Spanish

IT H Surrey's Poems, Tottel has joined, in his editions of 1557 and 1565, the SoNo Es and SoNNETTEs of fir Thomas Wyat the elder", and of Uncertain Aućtours. Wyat was of Allington-castle in Kent, which he magnificently repaired, and educated in both our universities. But his chief and most splendid accomplishments were derived from his travels into various parts of Europe, which he frequently visited in the quality of an envoy. He was endeared to king Henry the eighth, who did not always ačt from caprice, for his fidelity and success in the execution of public business, his skill in arms, literature, familiarity with languages, and lively conversation. Wood, who degrades every thing by poverty of style and improper representations, says, that “the king was in a high manner delighted “ with his witty jests *.” It is not perhaps improbable, that Henry was as much pleased with his repartees as his politics. He is reported to have occasioned the reformation by a joke, and to have planned the fall of cardinal Wolsey by a seasonable story". But he had almost lost his popularity, either from an intimacy with queen Anne Boleyn, which was called a connection, or the gloomy cabals of bishop Bonner, who could not bear his political superiority. Yet his prudence and integrity, no less than the powers of his oratory, justified his innocence. He laments his severe and unjust imprisonment on that trying occasion, in a sonnet addressed to fir Francis Bryan : infinuating his sollicitude, that although the wound would be healed, the scar would
remain, and that to be acquitted of the accusation would avail but little, while the thoughts of having been accused were still fresh in remembrance". It is a common mistake, that he died abroad of the plague in an embassy to Charles the fifth. Being sent to condućt that emperor's embassador from Falmouth to London, from too eager and a needless desire of executing his commission with dispatch and punétuality, he caught a fever by riding in a hot day, and in his return died on the road at Shirburn, where he was buried in the great conventual church, in the year 1541. The next year, Leland published a book of Latin verses on his death, with a wooden print of his head prefixed, probably done by Holbein". It will be superfluous to transcribe the panegyrics of his cotemporaries, after the encomium of lord Surrey, in which his amiable chara&ter owes more to truth, than to the graces of poetry, or to the flattery of friendship. We must agree with a critic above quoted, that Wyat cooperated with Surry, in having correóted the roughness of our poetic style. But Wyat, although sufficiently distinguished from the common versifiers of his age, is confessedly inferior to Surrey in harmony of numbers, perspicuity of expression, and facility of phraseology. Nor is he equal to Surrey in elegance of sentitiment, in nature and sensibility. His feelings are disguised by affectation, and obscured by conceit. His declarations of passion are embarrassed by wit and fancy; and his style is not intelligible, in proportion as it is careless and unadorned. His compliments, like the modes of behaviour in that age, are ceremonious and strained. He has too much art as a lover, and too little as a poet. His gallantries are laboured, and his versification negligent. The truth is, his genius was of the moral and didaćtic species: and his poems abound more in good sense, satire, and observations on life, than in pathos or imagination. Yet there
is a degree of lyric sweetness in the following lines to his lute,

My Lute awake, performe the last Labour, that thou and I shall wast; And end that I have now begonne : And when this song is sung and past, My lute be still, for I have done. As to be heard where care is none, As leade to grave in marble stone; My song, now pearse her hart as sone. Should we then figh, or fing, or mone * No, no, my lute, for I have done. The rockes do not so cruelly Repulse the waves continually, As she my sute and affection: So that I am past remedy. Whereby' my lute and I have done. Proude of the spoile which thou has gotte Of simple hartes, through Loves shotte, By whom unkinde thou hast them wonne; Thinke not he hath his bowe forgotte, Although my lute and I have done. Vengeance shall fall on thy disdaine, That makest but game on earnest paine: Thinke not alone under the sunne Unquit* to cause thy lovers plaine: Although my lute and I have done. May chaunce thee" lie withered and olde In winter nightes that are so colde, Plaining in vaine unto the mone': Thy wishes then dare not be tolde: Care then who list, for I have done.